Arcam FMJ CD23 CD player Measurements page 2

Linearity error (fig.4) was very low down to below -100dBFS, with noise then dominating the measurement. This noise can also be seen overlaying the three discrete voltage steps in the waveform of an undithered 1kHz tone at -90.31dBFS (fig.5).

The CD23's analog output stage seems to be bombproof. Loading it down with 600 ohms and feeding it with data representing a full-scale 50Hz tone resulted in a negligible amount of third-harmonic distortion and no high-order spuriae (fig.6). Similarly, driving the punishing combination of 19 and 20kHz tones, each at -6dBFS—which results in a waveform peaking at full scale into the same 600 ohm load—revealed negligible intermodulation products (fig.7).